The Best Form Of Attack?

Saturday’s 7-1 pummelling by Peterborough United shows why Ipswich Town manager Paul Jewell must start thinking ‘back to front’.

The astonishing result – one of the heaviest defeats in Town’s history – exposed the sheer scale of the Blues’ vulnerability at the back. It also conclusively proved another problem at Portman Road; Ipswich still haven’t replaced Gareth McAuley.

Whilst many might argue that the Town defence has been weak for many years now, McAuley’s partnership at centre-back with Damien Delaney was one of the clear strengths of the Ipswich side over the past two seasons. As a result of the mistakes of the Roy Keane regime however, McAuley’s contract was allowed to lapse before he made the switch to West Bromwich Albion in May.

Even though Delaney was retained on a new contract, the Republic of Ireland international has looked rather lost without his regular sidekick. The arrival of Ivar Ingimarsson over the summer offered hope with an opening day clean sheet at Bristol City, but in the wake of a niggling injury to the Icelandic veteran, Jewell has experimented with alternative double-acts involving youngsters Tommy Smith and Jack Ainsley.

Smith, who was on loan at Colchester United towards the end of last season, had looked below par in pre-season and has subsequently struggled at the start of the new campaign, culminating in a sending off after just 67 seconds as a half-time substitute at Peterborough.

New Zealand international Smith had been dropped from the start in favour of Jack Ainsley, who was making his first league start for the Blues first team. The 20-year-old looked ill-equipped to cope with the chaos happening around him however, and it is unlikely that Jewell can take the risk of making him a regular choice at this stage.

The bewildering lack of defensive options at Jewell’s disposal is a reflection of the Town manager’s frustration in finding new additions to his backline. Several possible names had been revealed – Sean St Ledger, Matthew Upson, Jonathan Woodgate, and most recently Daniel Ayala – only to be snapped up by other clubs, and Jewell has found himself dampening hopes of imminent arrivals in the face of extreme competition for every target he lines up.

“We are really desperately trying to get players in, but we’re all going for the same ones,’ Jewell told the East Anglian press last week. ‘Premier League teams are just seeing the transfer window out before they decide who they might loan out.’

‘We might have to bite the bullet for a couple of weeks. Not that we want to, we just might have to.’

After Saturday’s debacle however, the need for immediate backup to the Ipswich rearguard has become clear. With Smith presumably set for a three match suspension and Ingimarsson still looking doubtful, Town now have just two fit centre-backs – the same two who started at London Road.

It would be wrong to blame the pair in the middle of the backline for everything that went wrong at the weekend, and indeed against Southampton last Tuesday. The midfield was also a muddle in midweek and did little to help the men behind them at London Road either, whilst Jewell must take some blame for tactical mistakes against the Saints.

There can be no doubt however that in both strength and depth, central defence now looks to be the weakest area in the entire Ipswich squad. In Jewell’s own words to the local press, ‘obviously we are not blessed with competition in that position.’

Panic about the ramifications of similar batterings would be rather premature at this stage. The season is still in its infancy, and the string of summer arrivals will still take time to gel. Moreover, manager Jewell has acknowledged quite vocally that his Ipswich team is still far from complete, and if new blood is brought in where it is needed – and if it can flow with the rest of the team – then there is little reason to believe that the past week will be reflective of the campaign to come.

However, questions will be asked by many supporters as to why defensive deficiencies were not dealt with earlier in the summer. McAuley’s exit had been anticipated for some time and its significance was not lost on any Town fans, while the departures of Tom Eastman, Troy Brown and loanee Darren O’Dea further weakened the backline.

To his credit, the defensive signings Jewell has made this summer have been decent. Ingimarsson could well turn out to be an excellent acquisition – not least because his only appearance so far this season produced the Blues’ only clean sheet to date – but his influence will not be felt if he spends most of the time on the treatment table. Cresswell meanwhile has been one of the stars of Town’s campaign so far, but the former Tranmere Rovers left-back is still just 21 and can only do so much on his own.

The complaint of many fans however is not about what Jewell has brought in, but about the one thing he hasn’t. Despite having had all summer to build his squad, the Blues boss is still yet to acquire a permanent replacement for McAuley, and with just two weeks left before the transfer window closes, it doesn’t look much like he will find one either.

There is also growing criticism surrounding the manager’s failure to address the long-standing problem at right-back; a position which has arguably been in need of attention since the loss of David Wright. Carlos Edwards may have been expected to fill the role in the interim during the second half of last season, but with many anticipating the arrival of a natural right-back over the summer, the continued presence of Edwards as first choice for this position has been met with plenty of raised eyebrows.

The reason for this may be more obvious than we might realise. It is not just because Jewell has found his targets hard to land; perhaps it is also because the Town manager has been looking forward, not back.

For several years, the overwhelming problem at Portman Road has been a lack of firepower. The loss of Darren Bent and Shefki Kuqi in 2005 hit Ipswich harder than perhaps anybody had truly anticipated, with a string of names – Nicky Forster, Alan Lee, Jon Stead, Jon Walters et al. – coming and going without ever filling the void.

The consensus of opinion claims that Jewell has gone a long way towards finally rectifying this problem with the signing of Michael Chopra, a man widely heralded as the 20-goal-a-season striker that has eluded Town for a decade. In addition, the arrivals of Nathan Ellington, Jay Emmanuel-Thomas, Lee Bowyer and Keith Andrews have equipped Ipswich with a number of players who have shown themselves to have an eye for goal.

Therein lies the problem however. Perhaps Jewell has devoted so much time and energy towards addressing inadequacies at the front of the pitch that he has inadvertently neglected the back.

Andrews and Emmanuel-Thomas showed their attacking prowess against Southampton and Peterborough only for their goals to be rendered meaningless by counter-strikes at the other end, and for all his talent, Chopra cut a lonely figure during the second half at London Road as he stood watching the turmoil unfolding in his own half.

Indeed, Saturday’s defeat in particular demonstrated how success at the front can sometimes be built from the back. Such was Town’s defensive frailty against the Posh attack that the whole team spent almost the entire second half camped around the Ipswich penalty area, with the backline looking so fragile that nobody dared foray beyond the halfway line for fear of allowing themselves to suffer yet more embarrassment.

In a curious twist of the old adage therefore, maybe the best form of attack for Ipswich is defence. Once there is stability at the back and confidence in the entire team’s ability to cope when on the back foot, the Blues will be able to make the most of the talent they have going forward. After all, even though Town have only scored three goals in their last three league matches, it is certainly not because they have nobody capable of finding the net.

Fans should be reassured that all this will not be beyond the manager’s conception, nor is he incapable of acting upon it. Jewell is obviously working hard to bring in more players to plug the gaps at the back, but the urgency of an end product from all his negotiation and bartering is becoming greater with every game lost.

Mercy may have dealt him a helping hand with the fixture list, with no further match action until next weekend’s clash against Leeds United. By then however, there must be results off the pitch if Ipswich are to have much chance of achieving results on it. It may be early days, but if these defensive issues are not addressed now, many more weeks like this will finish off the Blues’ campaign before it has even gotten started.

After all, what good is it building a city wall when your Town has already crumbled?

By Darren Campbell


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